Forestry: between a rock and a hard place

Buying certified 'ethical' tropical wood. This is what an increasing number of environmentally and socially conscious European consumers are looking for. But even with FSC certification, this ethical stance cannot be imposed from above. It is developed with patience in a local African context which can prove to be complex and delicate. To gain a good understanding of this, Réflexions followed in the footsteps of the various forestry certification protagonists in the East of Cameroon. Among them, Jean-Louis Doucet, head of the Laboratoire de Foresterie des Régions Tropicales et Subtropicales of Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech.

The machete blow is sharp and accurate. Accompanied by his nurseryman, Professor Jean-Louis Doucet clears a path through the plantation which sprawls on the edge of the forest track. Everywhere he has to step over tangled weeds which are prone to invading young tree plants. 'It's a shame about the Doussie trees,’ laments the forestry engineer, head of the Laboratoire de Foresterie des régions tropicales et subtropicales of  Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech. ‘They are being smothered and are probably going to die. As for the Afara tree, it should pull through...’ And yes, fast action is needed to clear the young trees to enable them to grow in full daylight. The upkeep of tree plantations  cannot be improvised, particularly in the middle of a dense rainforest. Techniques have to be carefully considered and are based on carefully codified experimental measures. Further on, Professor Doucet sticks his blade to the left and right into the bark of older trees, taking advantage of this field visit to update his colleague's knowledge. Depending on the colour of the sap, the way in which it forms (sometimes in a spurt), its smell, even its taste, we can identify the family, even the species of the tree in the undergrowth: Euphorbiaceae, Caesalpiniaceae and so on.


Welcome to plantation number 8 of the Pallisco company, located somewhere between Mindourou and Makalaya, in the heart of the dense rainforests of Eastern Cameroon. That is in the middle of the tropical zone of the Congo Basin. In a few weeks, the records of this French company which exploits thousands of hectares awarded as a forestry concession by the Cameroon State will be scrutinised by the FSC (The Forest Stewardship Council), a measure which combines economic, social and environmental objectives. Areas of land such as this one will probably be surveyed from one end to the other for inspection purposes. Everything will be checked and analysed according to ten principles and the multiple FSC criteria and indicators.

The focus of the auditors' attention is the forest management plan which sets out, tree by tree and land parcel by land parcel, what can be chopped down in the next thirty years. It is only after this annual inspection that the logging companies will be sure that they can continue to sell their tropical timber - Sapele, Iroko, Afzelia, Afromosia... - with a small tree-shaped logo, the one which certifies the sustainable management of the forest of origin for the European consumer. 'With the scientific and technical help of our laboratory, Pallisco replants the most commercially viable species using innovative techniques', explains Jean-Louis Doucet. We focus on tree fall gaps to allow tree cover to regrow quite quickly, as well as the degraded, so-called 'secondary' forests, where current vegetation is due to, usually very old, human presence. But it is clear that maintaining biodiversity - both of flora and fauna - in the long term is also one of the key principles of the FSC. This is why we have to choose the tree species to be replanted very carefully, according to criteria that are not exclusively economic. Yet most of them remain relatively unknown. Hence our efforts to gain a better understanding of their ecology, their modes of reproduction, their genetic diversity and so on.'

For the contractors of major foreign companies who are more used to estimating the volume of trees and their commercial value than plunging into the details of forest ecology, the contribution of researchers from the Gembloux Laboratory is precious. They advise them on the fauna and flora inventories imposed by the FSC. They assist them in drawing up forest management plans. They act as a scientific safeguard for forestry regeneration programmes.  Sometimes they go as far as suggesting changes to regulations governing this sector, one of the country's biggest in terms of exports. In exchange for these contributions, the students of Gembloux have a special field of study and experimentation and direct contact, in real working conditions, with teams that are up to their necks in the sustainable exploitation of timber resources (read the interview with Professor Doucet). So every year, Jean-Louis Doucet and his colleagues travel to Cameroon, Gabon, Congo- Brazzaville or the Central African Republic - and, increasingly to the Democratic Republic of Congo - to follow their students and supervise forestry work: sylvicultural tests, plantations, in-depth ecological studies, the identification of high conservation value forests, community forestry and so on. Thousands of kilometres of roads and tracks to be travelled and working conditions that are not always easy…

Traps and Snares

First of all there is poaching, a real scourge in these remote regions, particularly in Cameroon. It is a real daily challenge for the scant monitoring services and the operators. Indeed, if the operators want to hang onto the key that opens the door of ecological markets - FSC certification - they must ensure the protection of gorillas, chimpanzees, mongooses and other duikers. The threat is two-fold: Benefiting from the roads and tracks created to move timber to sawmills and ports, poachers in motor vehicles criss-cross the forest and, thanks to a myriad of local ties, shamelessly exploit anything that moves. As for forestry workers in these poor and remote regions, sometimes they are also tempted to supplement their income by placing snares or shooting one or two mammals that they only have to sell on to a more or less formal network of retailers.



To attempt to limit poaching, Pallisco organises the sale of meat and fish - at cost price - to its workers and their families. It thus provides them with the essential dose of proteins for their diet:  a precious thing in these bush communities. The French company also uses the services of a security company which monitors the comings and goings of all trucks and pedestrians crossing the boundaries of its forest concessions. Although traditional hunting is tolerated, the sale of bush meat is banned. It is subject to a particular crackdown if the species are protected by law. From time to time, during their movements in the forest, at the side of the tracks the Gembloux researchers come face to face with groups of poachers caught in the act or evicted from their clandestine camps by the guards, in cooperation with the Department for Forests. In their game bag, a hotchpotch of dried, smoked or still bloody meat which will usually be confiscated and will not end up in the semi-clandestine stalls of Mindourou, Yaoundé or Douala. Better for the forest? Certainly. But sometimes these actions to stamp out poaching backfire on researchers. Hence, one fine day the nursery or plantation is discovered to have been mysteriously vandalised...

Derisory Resources

The other challenge in these remote areas relates to corruption and the lack of state efficiency. In its tiny office in Lomié (Département of Haut Nyong) covered with posters about the fight against poaching and corruption, the chief officer Léon Mtapié Djouedjeu lets out a deep sigh. His dream as a water and forest engineer is recorded in the service manual which he slips, somewhat timidly, under his visitors’ eyes. In it are listed in black and white the new security duties recently assigned to his office. It is up to him and his team to carry out the tasks of an administrative nature and in the field in all the surrounding forests. But what team exactly? The man is alone, desperately alone, monitoring a territory of 13 000 square kilometres, that is almost half the size of Belgium! He can just about count on the group of  'interns', permanent unpaid team-members. His work vehicle? A motorcycle that regularly breaks down. He has no other choice than to ask the operators - the very ones he is supposed to inspect - to provide him with a vehicle...

Although corruption is condemned in all official discourse (as soon as you get off the aeroplane in the arrivals lounge of Yaoundé airport), it is still not combatted enough. Many official bodies and international observers see it as the number one scourge of Cameroon. 'Transparency International  (Ed: the most vigilant NGO in this area) has awarded Cameroon the title of the world corruption champion three times in the last ten years', recalls Jean Nke Ndih, researcher at the Centre d’Etudes Environnementales et Sociales of the Université de Yaoundé 1 (1). 'A very good indicator of forest-related issues...’ This phenomenon is closely linked to poverty which is particularly striking in remote forest areas. Today half of all Cameroonians live with less than two dollars a day and the country comes 144th out of 177 in the United Nations Human Development Index. An unenviable fate.

From the beginning of the 1990s, pushed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the country undertook a major reform of its forestry legislation: thirty year felling rotation, an end to the forced movement of forest ethnic populations - particularly the Pygmies -, replacing private sale by calls to tender for the award of concessions, the creation of a 'community forest' status (managed by villagers) and so on. So many good resolutions, the aim of which was to ensure a fairer distribution of the fruits of the forest to the population as a whole, and hence to tackle poverty more effectively.

Alas! Ten to fifteen years later and, despite the introduction of several waves of reforms, the results remain mixed. Already in 2006, European researchers made the harsh observation that each year 540,000 cubic metres of timber leave the Cameroonian forest without being monitored or tracked by the State:  a quarter of national production. In the following four years, the conclusions of a mission to oversee governance, co-funded by the European Commission were no more positive. Although lawlessness has declined markedly within forest concessions awarded to foreign companies and although forest management plans are becoming the norm, the rest of the activities carried out in the forest seem to take place in the greatest anarchy: laundering of timber in community forests, lack of inspections at the key transport points, corruption and interventionism of the administrative and political authorities, ineffectiveness of the Brigade Nationale de Contrôle (National Monitoring Brigade), failings in the chain of custody, widespread tax fraud, fines rarely paid... A real litany which is condemned in the reports of the Observatoire Indépendant des Forêts (Independent Forest Observatory).

Pottery and Charcoal

At the Gembloux laboratory we know that this difficult context - poaching, corruption, lack of human resources - does not help to restore the image of logging in European countries. That it is why it is important to boost awareness of the efforts of companies involved in sustainable management and FSC certification. In particular this involves demolishing a cliché: that of a more or less 'virgin' African forest invaded by devastating logging activities. The presence of fragments of pottery shows that, on the contrary, the forests of the whole Cameroon-Gabon area, with just a few exceptions, have been regularly occupied by man for the last two millennia. Although this occupation was not without having an impact on the current layout of the forest, it is also interesting to think about how the forestry of today could contribute to the structure of the forest that will prevail in one hundred or two hundred years.

In the hamlet of ‘Kongo’ somewhere on the road to Mindourou, a strange ballet of Cameroonian workers is taking place in the middle of the forest under the mocking eyes of noisy monkeys. Whilst some take core soil samples from the earth, others, sitting next to small pits carved out with trowels, patiently roll tiny clods of earth between the thumb and the index finger looking for pottery and charcoal debris.  Tiny bees bombard the strange team in their hundreds, buzzing in their ears and working their way into their nostrils. The work of an archaeologist? In part, yes, as it is about identifying traces of a human presence that probably goes back several centuries. But it is much more than that in reality...

In some ways Jason Vleminckx, a first year PhD student at the ULB, is having his baptism of fire under the eyes of Jean-Louis Doucet: five days of total immersion in the forest, heading up a team of local workers, far from any telecommunication relay stations. A scientific assignment done 'the hard way' which consists of collecting the material which will form the basis of his thesis. The young biologist and his team subdivide a pre-selected forest area into twenty experimental plots of 2000 square metres. In the corner of each of them, he carries out coring with a borer and analyses, in particular, the physical and chemical composition of the soil. In the centre they dig a pit and tirelessly get on with the same work: detecting tiny residues of charcoal which, after anthracological analysis conducted in the laboratory, will provide information on the species of trees that once lived here. 'Each piece of charcoal is the footprint of a human occupation,’ explains the Ph.D. student: ‘for example a cooking fire, a craft activity or indeed a portion of forest burned to practise agriculture there. Microscopic analysis will tell us about the type of trees present in the period in question'. Throughout this painstaking work, the charcoal residues, carefully distinguished from various mineral debris and sometimes from pottery fragments, are slipped into small jars destined for the laboratories of Brussels, Tervuren (Royal Museum for Central Africa) or Gembloux (Agro-bio Tech, ULg).

'The multidisciplinary aspect of this type of work is exciting, adds Jean-Louis Doucet. And rare in the scientific world when it comes to the Congo Basin! We are indeed here at the crossroads of disciplines as varied as climatology, archaeology, anthracology, botany, genetics and so on.  By analysing and dating the charcoal, the vegetal community that lived in this place in different periods can be determined according to various factors: human activity, topography, soil type, the dispersal mode of species and so on.  But this type of hypothesis is only possible if the ecology of the species in question is sufficiently understood. We already know, for example, that, although a species such as Afrormosia, which is highly sought after on the European market, has difficulty regenerating naturally, this is not due to supposed over-exploitation but because it can no longer benefit from rays of light related to the type of roaming human activity that was practised over the last two centuries (read the article Protect the African Forest: yes, but not blindly!). Paradoxically, perhaps the future of other species also depends on the type of human activities carried out in the forest...'

The Ups and Downs of Development

Pallisco, like other companies committed to FSC, is perfectly aware that exploitation activities - and particularly the movement of timber trucks on the tracks that cross the villages - are not always appreciated by local communities.  It is not enough to give work to a few logging workers to gain the appreciation of all village communities. Nor is it enough make a real contribution to their development in terms of water, food, education, health care and so on. Yet this is what the FSC requires through its 'social' principles and recommendations.


This is why, aside from creating an infirmary of five people within the company itself (with a medical analysis laboratory, delivery room, 24-hour warden and free access to medication: a luxury that is quite unheard of in theforest), a few years ago Pallisco introduced a mediation policy aimed directly at the surrounding Bantou and Pygmy villages. 'We try to defuse conflicts, for example when our activities run the risk of threatening sacred sites, explains Laure Mbadi, mediator at Pallisco. Along with my two colleagues, we are also helping local communities to express their needs and requests in terms of development: drinking water, classrooms, health centres, agricultural equipment and so on.  We are trying to instil a participative dynamic, based on collective needs and not those of the head of the village or a specific group of individuals', explains the young woman, trained at the Université de Yaoundé. In 2011, Pallisco will have spent almost 25 million CFA francs - that is almost 40 000 Euros - on this type of action which, far from benefiting workers and their families alone, extends to thousands of families spread throughout the forest.

Effective? 'If they are related to health or education, most projects achieve good results', explains Laure Mbadi. But, whatever it takes, we must make sure they last. Indeed, there is no point building a classroom or a health centre if, two years later, the teacher or nurse can no longer be paid. The most difficult thing is when projects generate income, for example the cultivation of cocoa or oil palms. Often tensions appear at the sharing stage and the projects run the risk of exploding'. Our team of mediators is looking into the deep-seated reasons behind such difficulties. The historic burden of hand-outs (are there many NGOs in the region)? The lack of experience of the Pygmy and Bantou communities in the collective management of income? The remote influence of 'elites' from these villages who have often moved to the city or the capital? 'Simultaneous development and exploitation is very difficult', says the Observatoire Indépendant des Forêts, in Yaoundé. ‘These are two different jobs'.

It is a harsh observation. But what are the alternatives for the 'sustainable' forest operator, torn between the very strict social demands of the FSC certifiers and the difficulty of the State in fulfilling its duties to combat poverty? 'At least, as a certified company, we cannot solve all problems with bank notes', welcomes Laure Mbadi. We are not buying elites or people's silence... '. Despite the difficulties encountered, the efforts of mediators have proved fruitful. So, the time when tracks were blocked by unhappy villagers seems to be far behind us. Thanks to this presence in the field, conflicts can be defused before they break out into the open. 'In the last three years we have only seen one blockade of trucks. Something has changed'. A few weeks ago, a new mediator was recruited by the company:  a Pygmy to further improve relations with the inhabitants of the forest...

(1) « Déforestation : causes, acteurs et enjeux» (Deforestation, Causes, Stakeholders and Issues), Centre Tricontinental, septembre 2008